On August 18, 2026, Netflix released all ten episodes of Take a Hike! at once, a reality show that drops four Korean celebrities with essentially no hiking experience onto the country's steepest winter peaks and simply watches what happens. There is no competition, no elimination, and no prize. Within five days it was the most-watched Korean series on Netflix domestically.
The short version
- Na Young-seok's new show hit Netflix Korea's No. 1 spot in five days.
- Four celebrities didn't know they'd signed up for winter mountain climbing.
- About 70% of South Korea is mountainous, making hiking a national pastime.
The cast is singer Car, the garden; actor Lee Chae-min; DAY6 drummer Dowoon; and Tarzzan of the K-pop group AllDay Project. None of them had asked to be there.
Four celebrities who didn't realize they'd signed up to hike
Director Na Young-seok and co-director Park Hyun-yong reportedly kept the show's real premise vague during casting, telling the four they were joining a general travel variety show. Dowoon later told reporters that discovering the trip actually meant climbing snow-covered peaks felt like getting hit with a job scam.
The Korean title makes the joke explicit: 대체 등산을 왜 하는 건데?, which translates literally to "Why on earth would you hike?" and is usually shortened to "대등왜." Once filming started, the four gave themselves informal roles inside what they nicknamed a "descent club": Car, the garden took on the role of treasurer, and Dowoon, the only one able to drive, became the group's self-declared minister of transportation.
Training began with a ten-hour round trip up Mount Seorak, where temperatures dropped to -27.5°C. From there the group went on to climb Mount Taebaek and Mount Halla, South Korea's tallest peak, across the show's ten episodes.
The two idols who found out mid-shoot
Two of the four cast members come from active K-pop groups, which is part of what makes the show notable to international fans used to seeing idols in more controlled promotional settings. Dowoon is the drummer and youngest member of DAY6, a band that has kept the same five-member lineup since debuting in 2015.
Tarzzan, born Lee Chae-won, is a rapper and dancer in AllDay Project, the five-member co-ed group that producer Teddy's label The Black Label launched in June 2025 with the single "FAMOUS." Before joining the group he worked as a runway model, which gave him none of the outdoor stamina the mountains demanded.
Why a joke about not wanting to hike needed an entire show
To an outside viewer, ten episodes about people who don't want to be hiking might look like a strange premise for a hit. In Korea it works because hiking isn't a niche outdoor sport — it's close to a national default, and everyone already has an opinion about it.
Roughly 70% of South Korea's land area is mountainous, which makes a hike one of the few outdoor activities available to nearly anyone within a short bus ride of home. That accessibility is exactly what "Take a Hike!" is joking about: most Koreans have been dragged up a mountain by a parent, teacher, or company outing at some point, whether they wanted to or not.
The hobby your Korean uncle never had to explain
For decades, hiking in Korea carried a specific image: middle-aged men in bright windbreakers, gathered in groups, climbing on weekends. The stereotype has a practical basis.
- Hiking costs little beyond bus fare and a packed lunch, unlike golf or skiing
- Traditional family grave sites often sit on hillsides, so ancestral visits already required climbing
- Middle-aged parents whose children have grown often gain new free time with mountains nearby to fill it
Those conditions turned hiking into one of Korea's most normalized, least remarkable hobbies — which is exactly the image "Take a Hike!" drops its four young, style-conscious cast members into.
Gimbap and instant noodles at the summit, not tears
Korean hiking variety segments have a long-standing convention: cast members reach the summit, watch the sunrise, and cry. Na Young-seok built this show specifically to break that convention.
"In the old days, if you saw a mountain sunrise on a variety show, you basically had to cry," Na said at the show's press conference. "But these guys say they don't want to look at the scenery because they're exhausted." That exhaustion, not catharsis, is the show's real comic engine.
What does survive from tradition is the food. Sharing gimbap (seaweed rice rolls) and instant noodles at the summit is a decades-old ritual among Korean hikers, a small reward built into the culture of the climb itself. For domestic viewers it's a familiar beat; for international audiences unfamiliar with Korean hiking culture, it's one of the details the show explains almost by accident.
From an uncle's pastime to a Gen Z trend
The show also lands at a moment when hiking's image in Korea is shifting away from that older-generation stereotype. A 2024 Gallup Korea survey found that 72.8% of respondents in their 30s agreed young people were visiting mountains more than before, the highest share of any age group asked.
Younger hikers have reframed the activity around fashion and social media rather than fitness or scenery — "gorpcore" outdoor styling and "verification shot" posts marking a completed climb are now part of the appeal.
Foreign visitors have followed a similar curve: Seoul's own foot-traffic data recorded more than 4,000 daily foreign visitors at Bukhansan alone in 2025, with smaller peaks like Achasan showing double-digit percentage growth year over year.
Na Young-seok has spent two decades taking Korean stars out of the studio
None of this would land the way it does without Na Young-seok's track record. He made his name directing KBS's 2 Days & 1 Night starting in 2007, then left the network for cable channel tvN in December 2012 — an unusual move at the time, since cable variety carried far less prestige than terrestrial broadcasting still does in Korea.
At tvN he built a run of hit formats that each defined their own subgenre: Grandpas Over Flowers popularized backpack-style celebrity travel shows, and Three Meals a Day, which ran for nine seasons between 2014 and 2020, turned watching celebrities cook from scratch in a remote village into appointment television.
The latter made Na, in 2015, the first variety-show producer to win the Baeksang Grand Prize, the top overall honor at Korea's leading entertainment and film awards.
Why this show breaks his own formula
"Take a Hike!" is the third collaboration between Netflix and Egg Is Coming, the production company Na co-founded with longtime collaborators including screenwriter Lee Woo-jung. The first two releases, Three Meals in Kenya and Ready or Not: Texas, both leaned on Na's familiar troupe of veteran entertainers and filmed overseas.
"Take a Hike!" drops both habits. Filming stays entirely inside Korea, and the cast are near-strangers to each other and to variety television rather than Na's usual ensemble. Co-director Park Hyun-yong said the casting choice was deliberate: "We prioritized people who we thought would show the most genuine reactions when placed in extreme, difficult situations."
What's still unresolved
Netflix and Egg Is Coming haven't confirmed whether "Take a Hike!" will return for a second season, and its break from Na's usual travel-and-game formula makes it harder to predict than a straightforward sequel would be. Whether the low-conflict style that defined his tvN career translates into a repeatable Netflix hit, rather than a one-off experiment, is still an open question.
It's also unclear whether the show is riding Korea's hiking boom or helping cause it. The Gen Z hiking trend and the rise in foreign hikers at Seoul's peaks were already underway before the show aired — but "Take a Hike!" reaching Netflix's domestic No. 1 spot within five days suggests the two trends are now feeding each other.
Na Young-seok's Career Timeline
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2007 | Began directing KBS's 2 Days & 1 Night |
| December 2012 | Left KBS for cable channel tvN |
| 2014–2020 | Three Meals a Day ran for nine seasons |
| 2015 | First variety-show producer to win the Baeksang Grand Prize |
Frequently asked
Who is in the cast of Take a Hike?
The cast is singer Car, the garden; actor Lee Chae-min; DAY6 drummer Dowoon; and Tarzzan of AllDay Project.
Is Take a Hike a competition show?
No — there is no competition, no elimination, and no prize; the cast simply hikes Korea's steepest winter peaks.
Will there be a Take a Hike season 2?
Netflix and Egg Is Coming haven't confirmed whether the show will return for a second season.
Sources
Every factual claim above is traceable. We do not translate articles — we gather facts from multiple outlets and write them ourselves.
- Real mountains, real whinging: Netflix's 'Take a Hike!' sends reluctant stars up Korea's peaks — Korea JoongAng Daily
- Na Young Seok's production team joins Netflix for mountain hiking variety show starring an unlikely quartet — allkpop
- Car, the Garden and DAY6's Dowoon embark on tough winter hike in Netflix's 'Take a Hike!' — allkpop
- They hate hiking but were sent up Korea's mountains — and became a Netflix hit — The Korea Times
- Take a Hike! on Netflix sends four reluctant stars up Korea's winter mountains — Martin Cid Magazine
- '일출이고 뭐고 빨리 내려가자'…'K등산' 해외서도 터졌다 [K컬처인사이드] — Hankyung
- 등산에 빠진 MZ세대…산 좋아하는 '아재' 취미는 옛말 — Asia Economy (Asiae)
- New Korean Reality Series 'Take a Hike!' Set for August 2026 Release on Netflix — What's on Netflix
- AllDay Project — Wikipedia
- Na Young-seok — NamuWiki
